The month after I purchased this van from the Honda dealer (a 2 year old lease return with 16,000 miles), the battery died while I was camping after leaving the tailgate open for about 1/2 hour while unloading the camping gear. Nothing else was on but the little light on the tailgate indicating the door was open. The forest ranger gave me a jump. 2 days later, when the camping trip was over, the battery was dead again. The ranger gave me another jump and I drove home. The next week, the battery died while I was grocery shopping. Nothing was left on. I got another jump start then took the van to the dealer, who replaced the battery with a new one. Over the next several months, the battery still died, especially if I left it parked for more than 24 hours, or if I left a door open for a few minutes. Countless amount of time was spent at the dealership while they looked into the problem, replaced the battery a couple of more times (not very happily, I might add...), replacing the alternator (covered by the extended warranty after much haggling) as well as the battery again. The dealer said it's because of all the built-in electronics in the car that are always using some energy, even when the car is off. I don't buy that reason. Now, 5 years later, my car still dies, mostly at very inconvenient times, like waiting for someone at the airport (left the radio on for 10 minutes!), in parking lots, at work. I max out my AAA calls every year, always have jumper cables in the back, and have a trickle charger at home for when my car dies in my parking spot and there's no way for another car to reach me to help me out with a jump. I have 3 kids, and all of them have been stranded with me at one time or another because of this problem. I don't know how many other people have had this problem, but it's a real problem for me. And I still owe several thousand dollars on this car. I'm not going to ever buy another Honda again. I used to think they made the best cars, but not anymore....

This was a Honda Guaranteed replacement battery that was less than 3 years old. Battery had just been checked prior to trip and completely died with no warning and no reason (no lights left on , door open, etc). Had to have battery replaced on the fly of vacation. Trying to get Honda to cover the prorated cost of the warranty, dealer said I have to talk to Honda, Honda says it is the dealer. Went back and forth several times before Honda had me fax original dealer invoice, warranty card and replacement receipt. Just got a call back from Honda and said that the dealer invoice was not proof of payment, i had to have the credit card slip. The three page invoice with zero balance was not sufficient, I had to have a tiny slip from nearly 3 years ago. She gave me 24 hours to find it, otherwise they would deny the claim and close it out. I had the slip until two weeks ago when I faxed her 10 pages of info but had to unstaple it to go through the fax machine. Now I have to request a credit card statement from my credit card company and hope I get it within the 24 hour deadline I was given. We bought this car new in 2005 and have an entire notebook of problems with it - when I have time I will enter each one in the website, 13 times in shop in the first year and no less than 6 teams each other year we owned it, we have every invoice. Honda knew it was an issue and gave us an extended warranty to $108K rather than take it back under a Lemon Law. Been looking for a new car and every dealer I go to (even Honda) responds the same way when I say I had an Odyssey with lots of problems "It's a 2005, isn't it?" I would STRONGLY warn anyone from buying any 2005 model odyssey - we had a transmission, engine mounts, Nav, DVD X2 times, motorized seat base, wiper motor, and many many more repairs while we owned this car. Worst car ever.